Presenter Jessica Curry says she wants to prove it’s not all about soundtracking battle scenes – there are plenty of beautiful, relaxing sounds, tooRadio 3 is launching a new weekly programme dedicated to video game soundtracks. Running from Saturday 26 October, the hour-long show will be presented by composer Jessica Curry, who won a Bafta for her work with UK studio The Chinese Room and created and presented Classic FM’s video game music programme, High Score.“[BBC presenter and journalist] Tom Service and his producer Brian Jackson came to interview me for Radio 3 at Chinese Room a couple of years ago, and we all really hit it off,” said Curry. “Tom’s an avid gamer and there was a definite feeling of excitement about the gaming scene and the music that’s being composed for games. Continue reading...

There are more than 100m Alexa-enabled devices in our homes. But are they fun time-savers or the beginning of an Orwellian nightmareOne day in 2017, Alexa went rogue. When Martin Josephson, who lives in London, came home from work, he heard his Amazon Echo Dot voice assistant spitting out fragmentary commands, seemingly based on his previous interactions with the device. It appeared to be regurgitating requests to book train tickets for journeys he had already taken and to record TV shows that he had already watched. Josephson had not said the wake word – “Alexa” – to activate it and nothing he said would stop it. It was, he says, “Kafkaesque”.This was especially interesting because Josephson (not his real name) was a former Amazon employee. Three years earlier, he had volunteered to sit in a room reciting a string of apparently meaningless phrases into a microphone for an undisclosed purpose. Only when Amazon released the Echo in the US in 2014 did he realise what he had been working on. He bought a Dot, the Echo’s cheaper, smaller model, after it launched in 2016, and found it useful enough until the day it went haywire. When the Dot’s outburst subsided, he unplugged it and deposited it in the bin. “I felt a bit foolish,” he says. “Having worked at Amazon, and having seen how they used people’s data, I knew I couldn’t trust them.” Continue reading...

After two speakers were banned, a third says organisers tried to edit his presentationOrganisers at the Australian Cyber Conference in Melbourne asked a speaker to edit his speech on Australia’s anti-encryption legislation, after they had dropped two other speakers, who were delivering talks related to whistleblowing, from the line-up at the last minute.Guardian Australia has learned that Ted Ringrose, partner with legal advice firm Ringrose Siganto was told to edit his speech, and conference organisers had sent him an edited version of his slide pack on his talk stating that the original version was “biased”. Continue reading...

Ameen al-Jaleeli and a team of student translators are working to empower people with knowledgeWhen Islamic State overran the Iraqi city of Mosul, human life was not the only thing in peril. Knowledge was, too.Fortunately, Ameen al-Jaleeli understood this. He used a friend’s wifi to transfer a vast batch of Wikipedia files for offline usage. When the militants cut the cables in July 2016, he was ready. Continue reading...

Australia and the US are negotiating a deal to speed up information sharing about criminal suspectsAustralia and the US have begun negotiating a deal to speed up information sharing about criminal suspects between law enforcement agencies and tech giants such as Google and Facebook.But questions remain about the practical effects of such a deal, given the drive towards encryption of information that keeps data at arm’s length from the tech companies themselves. Continue reading...

Thomas Drake and academic Suelette Dreyfus were dropped from the line-up at a Melbourne cyber conference at the last minuteA whistleblower and an academic have said pressure from the Australian government’s top cyber security agency led to their speeches being cancelled at a conference in Melbourne.Former NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake, and Melbourne University academic Dr Suelette Dreyfus were both due to speak at the Australian Cyber Conference in Melbourne on October 7-9. Continue reading...

New 6in Kindle Kids Edition comes with 1,000 books, word-building tools and parental controlsAmazon has launched a new version of its popular Kindle e-reader aimed at children, which comes bundled with more than 1,000 age-appropriate books.The new £99 Kindle Kids Edition is a special variant of Amazon’s latest, cheapest frontlit 6in Kindle with software designed to encourage reading through gamification and word building. Continue reading...

Payments company becomes first to withdraw from controversial digital projectPayPal has become the first company to drop out of Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency, as the embattled project continues to face queries from regulators around the world.Libra is technically an association backed by 28 – now 27 – multinational companies and nonprofits, although Facebook takes the lead, and a Facebook subsidiary, Calibra, is intended to be the main way consumers will interact with the project. Each of the companies involved had to pledge $10m (£8m) into a common pot to join. Continue reading...

Ada Lovelace Day is in its 10th year, and to mark it, Jordan Erica Webber is joined by the founder of the event, Suw Charman-Anderson, to talk about why we need to do more to help support women working in STEM. She also talks to Dr Tilly Blyth, the head of collections and principal curator at the Science Museum in London, to learn more about why Ada Lovelace was a mathematician ahead of her time Continue reading...

UK technology editor Alex Hern joins Anushka Asthana to discuss the Chinese-owned social network that is growing its user base with shareable short videos set to catchy soundtracks. But is it also being used as a tool of Chinese foreign policy? Plus: Marie Le Conte on the role of political gossipIt’s the wildly successful Chinese-owned video-sharing app that is taking on the likes of Snapchat and Instagram. Its users share short videos, 15 to 60 seconds long, usually set to music or film dialogue. But its success comes with worries that it is being used to advance Chinese foreign policy aims and even export censorship.The Guardian’s Alex Hern tells Anushka Asthana about a series of leaked documents he has seen that showed the company’s moderation policies. They included guidance to censor videos that mention Tiananmen Square, Tibetan independence and the banned religious group Falun Gong. Continue reading...

Public broadcaster launches show led by 20-year-old comedian with 7m followers aiming to attract younger viewersShe has 7 million followers on video app TikTok and the BBC is pinning its hopes on her new female-led sketch show winning it teen viewers but Amelia Gething says she still encounters “cavemen” comments about women comedians.The 20-year-old’s forthcoming BBC youth series The Amelia Gething Complex counters pre-conceived ideas about female comedians with its surreal Monty Python and League of Gentlemen style of humour. Continue reading...

Have the social media giants cleaned up their act since the scandals of 2016? We give the big names a healthcheck

Renault’s sublime racer finds the sunshine on the stormiest of drivesRenault Mégane RS 300 Trophy

The US president is a climate-crisis denier, but it is not the only field in which he is at odds with scientists and their workLast week, a report by US campaign group the National Task Force on Rule of Law and Democracy, compiled by ex-government officials, concluded that under the Trump administration that there were now “almost weekly violations” to the impartiality of scientific research. Continue reading...

It can pick out shoplifters, international criminals and lost children in seconds. But as the cameras proliferate, who’s watching the watchers?Gordon’s wine bar is reached through a discreet side-door, a few paces from the slipstream of London theatregoers and suited professionals powering towards their evening train. A steep staircase plunges visitors into a dimly lit cavern, lined with dusty champagne bottles and faded newspaper clippings, which appears to have had only minor refurbishment since it opened in 1890. “If Miss Havisham was in the licensing trade,” an Evening Standard review once suggested, “this could have been the result.”The bar’s Dickensian gloom is a selling point for people embarking on affairs, and actors or politicians wanting a quiet drink – but also for pickpockets. When Simon Gordon took over the family business in the early 2000s, he would spend hours scrutinising the faces of the people who haunted his CCTV footage. “There was one guy who I almost felt I knew,” he says. “He used to come down here the whole time and steal.” The man vanished for a six-month stretch, but then reappeared, chubbier, apparently after a stint in jail. When two of Gordon’s friends visited the bar for lunch and both had their wallets pinched in his presence, he decided to take matters into his own hands. “The police did nothing about it,” he says. “It really annoyed me.” Continue reading...

Group called ‘Phosphorus’ made more than 2,700 attempts to identify consumer email accounts and attacked 241 of thoseA hacking group that appears to be linked to the Iranian government has carried out a campaign against a US presidential campaign, Microsoft Corp said on Friday.Microsoft saw “significant” cyber activity by the group that also targeted current and former US government officials, journalists covering global politics and prominent Iranians living outside Iran, the company said in a blogpost. Continue reading...

Met apologises after local police passed on images for controversial surveillance schemeImages of seven people were passed on by local police for use in a facial recognition system at King’s Cross in London in an agreement that was struck in secret, the details of which have been made public for the first time.A police report, published on Friday by the deputy London mayor, Sophie Linden, showed that the scheme ran for two years from 2016 without any apparent central oversight from either the Metropolitan police or the office of the mayor, Sadiq Khan. Continue reading...

Firm quietly rescinds policy banning false advertising as UK general election loomsFacebook has quietly rescinded a policy banning false claims in advertising, creating a specific exemption that leaves political adverts unconstrained regarding how they could mislead or deceive, as a potential general election looms in the UK.The social network had previously banned adverts containing “deceptive, false or misleading content”, a much stronger restriction than its general rules around Facebook posts. But, as reported by the journalist Judd Legum, in the last week the rules have narrowed considerably, only banning adverts that “include claims debunked by third-party fact-checkers, or, in certain circumstances, claims debunked by organisations with particular expertise”. Continue reading...

It’s the most eagerly awaited game of the year – and it stars everyone from Guillermo del Toro to the Bionic Woman. We tell the inside story of the dystopian thrillerImagine a world where babies are stored in life-support jars, humans are stalked by oily ghosts, and the American president is played by Lindsay Wagner, the helter-skelter-haired star of 1970s cult TV show The Bionic Woman. This is the dystopian milieu of Death Stranding, which will hit shops soon, just in time for the hectic Christmas period. In this epic video game, by far the most controversial of 2019, players must traverse a future America to reconnect its “chiral network” (a posh internet), while dodging mysterious BTs (beached things). For reasons unknown, the living and dead coexist, with the protagonist able to connect to the “other side” via a “jar baby” in an artificial womb. One recent demo focused on such gimmicks as urinating to create mushrooms.Wagner is not the only star to feature. Acclaimed video game director Hideo Kojima and his team have also created incredible likenesses of The Walking Dead’s Norman Reedus, who takes on the lead role of delivery man, as well as Mads Mikkelsen and director Guillermo del Toro. Most agreed to perform because they’re fans of Kojima’s work, especially his multimillion-selling Metal Gear Solid series. Wagner took more persuading, though. Continue reading...

Facebook says it opposes calls for backdoors that would ‘undermine the privacy and security of people everywhere’The United States, United Kingdom and Australia plan to pressure Facebook to create a backdoor into its encrypted messaging apps that would allow governments to access the content of private communications, according to an open letter from top government officials to Mark Zuckerberg obtained by the Guardian.The open letter, dated 4 October, is jointly signed by the UK home secretary, Priti Patel; the US attorney general, William Barr; the US acting secretary of homeland security, Kevin McAleenan; and the Australian minister for home affairs, Peter Dutton, and is expected to be released Friday. Continue reading...

Subcontracted workers were told to persuade subjects to agree to face scans, mischaracterizing them as a ‘selfie game’ or ‘survey’Facial recognition technology’s failures when it comes to accurately identifying people of color have been well documented and much criticized. But an attempt by Google to improve its facial recognition algorithms by collecting data from people with dark skin is raising further concerns about the ethics of the data harvesting.Google has been using subcontracted workers to collect face scans from members of the public in exchange for $5 gift cards, according to a report from the New York Daily News. The face scan collection project had been previously reported, but anonymous sources described unethical and deceptive practices to the Daily News. Continue reading...

ECJ says member states can order platform to remove defamatory material globallyFacebook will be subject to tougher controls over online content after the EU’s highest court ruled the social media company can be ordered by member states to remove defamatory material worldwide.The judgment from the European court of justice in Luxembourg was condemned by free speech organisations for imposing restrictions on online comments. It effectively edges internet service providers further down the road towards becoming traditional publishers. Continue reading...

Anthony wants to replace his mother’s old Windows 7 laptop. Would a mini-PC hooked up to her 32in TV work well enough?My retired mother happily uses her iPhone and iPad for the majority of her digital needs, but she uses an old, low-spec Windows 7 laptop for Microsoft Office documents for various committees she sits on, for her music library and digital photos, some web browsing and other tasks that cannot be easily done on a small device.I have a Mac Mini running through a 42in TV set, and we are interested in the feasibility of using a mini PC hooked up to her 32in TV. Target budget is £300 for PC, keyboard and any adaptors.Mini or micro PCs are terrific at what they do, as long as you don’t expect them to do too much. They are also potential space-savers because they can be attached to the back of any monitor or TV set that has a standard VESA mount. Anyone unfamiliar with the form factor can read an answer from November 2018, What is the point of mini PCs? Continue reading...

Experimental game designer Nina Freeman returns with a set of funny, thoughtful vignettes about the awkwardness of new relationshipsPC/Mac, Star Maid GamesFor the last five years, the independent game designer Nina Freeman, working with small teams of collaborators, has been exploring the boundaries and connections between video games, art and autobiography. Her witty, ethereal projects often involve her own experiences with family and lovers, and tease relatable truths from the most subtle interactions: a girl learning about sex while playing with dolls; a young woman’s online relationship explored through the folders on her PC desktop. As a “player”, your role is often subtle, flitting between embodiment, friendship and voyeurism.We Met in May is a set of four vignette games about the early moments in a romantic relationship, ostensibly between Nina herself and the game’s co-creator and artist, Jake Jefferies. In Nothing to Hide, Nina has invited Jake back to her flat for the first time and, bashful about its untidiness and her collection of anime plushies and posters, considers hiding things from him – it’s up to the player to decide what she conceals. In Beach Date, Nina and Jake lounge at the seaside and, controlling her arm with the cursor, you can pile sand or suncream on to him, or try to pour wine into his mouth. The inexactness of the control mechanic makes her arm flail awkwardly, like a sort of dating version of Surgeon Simulator. Continue reading...

Product bonanza includes bigger Surface Laptop 3, Surface Earbuds and updated Surface Pro 7Microsoft has launched the Surface Pro X, a redesigned thin and light two-in-one Windows 10 PC running on custom ARM chips rather than traditional Intel processors, plus the Surface Pro 7 and Surface Laptop 3, and previewed a folding phone and dual-screen tablet.The products were unveiled at an event in New York on Wednesday, where Microsoft sought to grab attention from rivals including Apple and Samsung. Continue reading...

Once merely a symbol for a fruit, then a bum, the singer and rapper Lizzo has used the peach emoji to call for Trump’s impeachment – proof that emojis never stop evolvingName: Peach emoji.Age: Up to 6,000 years old. Continue reading...

Four large companies – including Sony and Sega – have claimed close to half of all relief from a culture-focused tax policyA UK tax policy intended to boost the domestic video games industry has been used by some of the world’s largest entertainment companies to avoid paying tens of millions of pounds in corporation tax, a Guardian investigation has found.WarnerMedia, which owns the British game development companies that make the Lego and Batman: Arkham series, has claimed up to £60m in corporation tax relief, according to company filings. Continue reading...

As the augmented-reality spinoff from the block-building game arrives this month, players will be taking their creations to the streetsSix of us are huddled together in Cavendish Square Gardens in central London, fighting a horde of warrior skeletons. To passersby, however, we must look like a bunch of adults pointing our smartphones at nothing while shouting about incoming monsters. This isn’t a bizarre new workplace therapy. What we’re doing is playing a beta version of Minecraft Earth, an augmented reality (AR) spinoff from the multimillion-selling block-building game – and very soon, parks all over the world will be filled with people just like us.This month, Minecraft is launching an early-access version of the game in a select few territories around the world, ahead of a global roll-out. Microsoft has yet to reveal exactly when and where, but soon thousands of fans used to playing on their console, PC or tablet, are going to be taking their creations to the streets. Continue reading...

Vehicle is to be shipped to South Africa – where goal is to reach speed of 1,000mphA sleek machine that looks like a mash-up between a grandprix car, a fighter plane and a spaceship has undergone a final, ear-splitting test in the UK before being shipped to a desert in South Africa where it may eventually reach a speed of 1,000mph.Over the past six months the Bloodhound LSR has taken shape in a workshop on a college campus in Gloucestershire and on Monday a “dry crank test” was carried out in which the car was powered up to confirm that the engine and systems had been correctly installed. Continue reading...

Prof Rose Luckin, Anthony Seldon and Priya Lakhani say artificial intelligence is not to be feared and point out how it can help studentsThe Guardian is right to express legitimate concerns about the opacity of machine learning systems and attempts to replicate what humans do best (Editorial, 23 September), and we welcome this. However, as founders of the Institute for Ethical AI in Education (IEAIED) we believe these problems must be overcome in order to ensure people are able to benefit from artificial intelligence, not just fear it.There are highly beneficial applications of machine learning. In education, for example, this innovation will enable personalised learning for all and is already enabling individualised learning support for increasing numbers of students. Well-designed AI can be used to identify learners’ particular needs so that everyone – especially the most vulnerable – can receive targeted support. Given the magnitude of what people have to gain from machine learning tools, we feel an obligation to mitigate and counteract the inherent risks so that the best possible outcomes can be realised. Continue reading...

Phoebe Waller-Bridge | Fairphone 3 | Supporting Huddersfield Town | Dinner v teaCongratulations to Phoebe Waller-Bridge on her well-deserved Emmy awards. It is just a pity she has decided to take her success to a minority channel, leaving the majority of her fans behind (Waller-Bridge has Amazon deal in the bag, 25 September). It’s that much more galling given that the public who supported her through the licence fee will have to shell out (if they can) to an organisation that doesn’t even pay its fair share of tax in the UK.

Jordan Erica Webber chats to New York Times reporter Mike Isaac about Super Pumped, his new book on the rise and fall of Travis Kalanick Continue reading...

Identity fraud is justification for collecting photos from drivers’ licences and passports but critics say plan too invasiveIf you’ve had a driver’s licence photo or passport photo taken in Australia in the past few years, it’s likely your face will end up in a massive new national network the federal government is trying to create.Victoria and Tasmania have already begun to upload driver’s licence details to state databases that will eventually be linked to a future national one. Continue reading...

You can get great phones at almost any price – here’s a guide to some of the best aroundWhen it comes to buying a new phone some enthusiasts reckon you need to spend £1,000-plus to buy a good one. But the truth is that you can get great phones at almost any price.With so many different brands, models and capabilities to choose from it can be difficult to know which to buy. So here’s a guide to some of the best phones at different price points, so you don’t end up buying a dud. Continue reading...

Social media giant said the move was backed by anti-bullying and mental health groupsSome Facebook users will soon no longer see the number of likes, reactions and video views on other’s posts in a world-first trial aimed at boosting users’ wellbeing.Instead, likes will be private and only visible to the post’s author in a change that follows a similar test on Instagram which started in July in Australia. The new Facebook trial, which begins on Friday, will also kick off in Australia. Continue reading...

Company to offer information on public transport and other travel options in quest to build ‘operating system for everyday life’Uber has announced a slew of updates to its app – including consolidating its food delivery and ride-hailing services, and a new feature highlighting local public transportation options – in a bid to create “an operating system for everyday life”.Uber announced the more than 25 changes to its platform at a launch event in San Francisco on Thursday. Among the tech company’s most significant moves will be merging its ride-hailing app and food-delivery app Uber Eats, and offering users alternative travel information including bikes, scooters, public transportation, and even helicopters in some locations. Continue reading...

Kait Diaz is a success as the protagonist in Gears 5, but the process of getting her there went back years and involved cultural change for the game’s developerZöe Curnoe, a senior producer at video game developer The Coalition, lets out a long sigh. We’ve just reminded her about a tweet from Cliff Bleszinski, the former lead designer on the Gears of War franchise, which she has worked on for several years. Gears 5, the latest title in the Gears of War series, has a female protagonist for the first time.Related: Gears 5 review – thrills, kills and belly laughs in a refreshing reboot Continue reading...

Echo Frames, Loop and Buds launched along with series of updates to previous productsAmazon wants its Alexa voice assistant to leave the home and be with you everywhere you go, and is turning to wearable technology to achieve this.Unveiled at an event in Seattle on Wednesday, Amazon’s new Echo Frames smart glasses, Echo Loop ring and Echo Buds aim to put Alexa on your face, your hand or in your ears. Continue reading...

Robert is looking for a laptop that has a keyboard like an old MacBook AirMy son has grown up using a MacBook Air for Minecraft. He swears by the keyboard layout, and having witnessed the blazing speed with which he does things in the game, I understand his reluctance to use his Alienware laptop. (I know, first-world problems, and all that …)Both machines are almost six years old and due a refresh, so I’m looking for a Windows laptop that is powerful enough to run games like Civilization 6 (with mods) but with a keyboard layout that is sufficiently similar to a MacBook that he can continue to use the muscle memory he has built up over the years. Does such a beast exist?Take your son to an Apple store or a good computer shop where he can try a MacBook Pro, ideally running Minecraft. In this case, my normal advice – stick with what you know – runs into the problem that what you know no longer exists, unless you buy a second-hand laptop. Continue reading...

PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One; Electronic Arts

PM uses his General Assembly speech on the challenges of technology to paint a dystopian view before returning to political crisis at home

Leak spells out how social media app advances China’s foreign policy aimsTikTok, the popular Chinese-owned social network, instructs its moderators to censor videos that mention Tiananmen Square, Tibetan independence, or the banned religious group Falun Gong, according to leaked documents detailing the site’s moderation guidelines.The documents, revealed by the Guardian for the first time, lay out how ByteDance, the Beijing-headquartered technology company that owns TikTok, is advancing Chinese foreign policy aims abroad through the app. Continue reading...

The tech employees, who have complained of low pay and stingy time off, will join with the United Steel WorkersA group of Google contract workers in Pittsburgh voted to unionize on Tuesday, a historic development within the labor movement and a remarkable return to the city’s industrial roots.

Europe’s top court says firm does not have to take sensitive information off global searchThe “right to be forgotten” online does not extend beyond the borders of the European Union, the bloc’s highest court has ruled in a major victory for Google.The right, enshrined in a 2014 legal ruling, required search engines to delete embarrassing or out-of-date information, when requested by the individuals concerned but in a landmark ruling on Tuesday, the European court of justice said search engine operators faced no obligation to remove information outside the 28-country zone. Continue reading...

Transport for London again rejects ride-hailing firm’s application for a full licenceUber’s application to renew its private hire operating licence in London has been rebuffed again by regulators.Transport for London has instead given the ride-hailing firm only a two-month extension to its licence, which is due to expire on Wednesday night. Continue reading...

Critics say DoH privacy technology could enable easier spread of child abuse imagesThe maker of the Firefox web browser has told the government it has no plans to turn a controversial web privacy tool on by default in the UK, despite launching it in the US later in September.Mozilla has announced it will make the tool, called DNS-over-HTTPS, or DoH, the default for all users in the US. Continue reading...

Proposal for government to hold details amid complaints of council homes used for holiday letsAirbnb hosts could have their identities included on a register for the first time to prevent illegal short-term rents and the use of scarce council housing as holiday accommodation.The San Francisco-based property rental platform will this week begin a consultation on proposals for a register of hosts. It will ultimately present a white paper to politicians and community leaders across the UK, who have complained they are powerless to act when whole blocks are sometimes overrun by short-term rentals. Any register would be held by governmental bodies rather than the provider itself and would apply across homeshare sites. Continue reading...

Plan for register follows complaints in UK of council homes used for holiday letsAirbnb hosts could have their identities shared for the first time to prevent illegal short-term rents and the use of scarce council housing as holiday accommodation.The San Francisco-based property rental platform will this week begin drawing up plans for a register of hosts after pressure from politicians and community leaders across the UK who have complained they are powerless to act when whole blocks are sometimes overrun by short-term rentals. Continue reading...

The return of the Modern Warfare series ends its beta test on a high, with the chaotic Ground War mode and other fresh tweaks giving the reboot a different feelA couple of hours and several dozen respawns into the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare beta test and you gradually start to appreciate the changes. The latest title in the multimillion-selling shooter series is being sold as a return to the principles of its near-namesake, 2007’s Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Developer Infinity Ward is promising gritty, contemporary combat on claustrophobic maps with authentic weapons and skills – and absolutely none of the laser guns or wall-running super powers that have blighted later episodes. The beta tests, held over the last two weekends, have been the first chance to experience this premise on public servers. And it has not been disappointing.In many ways, the new title does feel very similar to the original Modern Warfare trilogy. We get familiar weapons with familiar effects, such as the super versatile M4A1 assault rifle and the strange-looking AUG with its blisteringly rapid fire rate. There is also a return for killstreaks, where players are specifically rewarded for shooting enemies rather than meeting mission objectives, recalling Modern Warfare’s ultra-aggressive roots. Map locations also have a nostalgically grungy and bomb-blasted look. Azhir Cave is a mass of snaking desert tunnels and crumbling villages, while Hackney Yard is all rusted shipping containers, abandoned offices and burned-out police cars. Continue reading...